Catonsville parents address school overcrowding concerns

Hillcrest Elementary School nearly 200 students over capacity

Catonsville is becoming more popular as a place to raise a family, but the influx of children makes overcrowding a concern parents are hoping will be addressed.

Catonsville parents address school overcrowding concerns

Hillcrest Elementary School nearly 200 students over capacity

Updated: 8:54 AM EDT May 9, 2013

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CATONSVILLE, Md. —

Catonsville is becoming more popular as a place to raise a family, but the influx of children makes overcrowding a concern that parents hoped would be taken into consideration at a community meeting with school leaders Wednesday night.

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"A lot of older families with grown children are moving out of the neighborhood, and a lot of young families with young or school-age children are coming in. Some of our local real estate agents we spoke to said that in 2012, they saw as much as 75 to 80 percent of their home sales went to families with school-age or younger children," parent Erica Mah said.

That's also leading to some problems. Several elementary schools in Catonsville are overcrowded. Hillcrest is the worst, with a capacity for 666 students and an enrollment of 838 -- nearly 200 students more than the building was built to hold.

"We have not only used up all of our physical space in the building, but it has become a problem for scheduling lunches. They're getting earlier and earlier every year. My third-grader eats lunch at 10:40 in the morning, and they have lunches until well after 1:30," parent Kelly Fox said.

"A lot of kids are on art on a cart. We have great art teachers, but they have to bring everything on their cart. Music is also on a cart in a lot of classrooms. Some kids don't get to go to the library because the library has to come to them on a cart," Mah said.

Parents voice concerns at community meeting

Parents and community members got to voice their concerns at a meeting at Catonsville High School on Wednesday night. People from the county school system and superintendent's office were there to talk with parents about possible solutions to the problem.

School officials said they don't have a final budget in place but said they can afford to add about 500 more classroom seats. The options talked about the most included building a new school by the fall of 2015 or making additions to existing schools, but officials said that option would take longer to accomplish.

Some parents agree with the new school option. Others offered their own thoughts.

"It doesn't make any sense to have three elementary schools within a mile of each other. Why not simply change the entire way the school is structured and have a pre-middle school?" questioned parent Mike Pischini.

"One idea that's been bounced around that I personally like is having an early learning center. People get very concerned when you talk about redistricting, and when you have an early-learning center, you would take pre-k, kindergarten and probably first grade and put them into a school," Mah said.

Many parents were skeptical that their ideas would be considered.

"I feel like it's really premature to come up with solutions, at this point, when we don't have all the information," Kathleen Cummings said.

"We believe they've already done a think tank of their own on this and they already have very strong ideas on which directions they want to move, and asking our opinion is a formality," said parent Audrey White.

School officials said they do not predetermine plans and promised parents to have another meeting in two weeks, where they'll go over the most viable options. It's not clear if there will be a final decision at that meeting.